1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connecting terminal for a cable, and more particularly to a cable connecting terminal which provides improved conductivity and safety.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical cable connection is carried out by twisting the conductive wires of the cables together and then covering them with electrical tape. However, this connection is inconvenient and dangerous because the tape may lose its adhesive ability.
In order to improve the above issue, a cable connection terminal has been developed, such as the terminal disclosed in German patent application serial No. 200610019150 shown in FIG. 1-FIG. 3. This cable connection terminal comprises a terminal box 10; inside the terminal box 10 is a sheet spring 16 and a current bus. One opened end of the terminal box 10 has a panel 11. The panel 11 has a plurality of cable holes 12, 13 and 14, and a spring tongue 21 and a window 211 are formed on the sheet spring 16 corresponding to each cable hole 12, 13 and 14.
As shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the cable 15 is stripped to expose a suitable length of conductive wire 18, and the conductive wire 18 is inserted through the cable hole 12 on the panel 11 into the terminal box 10. The conductive wire 18 of the cable 15 then is pressed by a free end 20 of the spring tongue 21 through the window 211, such that the conductive wire 18 of the cable 15 tightly contacts a free end 177 of the current bus 17. With the current bus 17, different cables 15 inserted in the terminal box 10 are connected. Furthermore, the free end 20 of the spring tongue 21 provides a one-way securing effect to prevent the cable 15 from being pulled out of the terminal box 10. Therefore, the connection between the two cables 15 is established.
However, although the above-mentioned cable terminal provides an improvement over the above-indicated issue, the conductive wire 18 of the cable 15 only contacts the free end 20 of the spring tongue 21 and the freed end 171 of the current bus 17 (as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3). Therefore, the very limited contact area causes poor conductivity and high temperatures, which may result in elastic degradation of the spring tongue 21 and affect the contact between the free end 20 of the spring tongue 21, the current bus 17 and the cable 15. Sometimes the cable 15 may even escape from the terminal box which can be dangerous.
Furthermore, the above-mentioned cable terminal has only one panel 11 with the cable holes 12, 13 and 14; therefore, only a cable 15 from the same direction can be directly inserted into the terminal box 10; a cable 15 from another direction needs to be folded or bent to be inserted into the terminal box 10, which leads to clutter.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a connecting terminal for a cable to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.